Give Quakers Your Money

It's the end of the year and you know what that means: lots of emails from Quaker nonprofit organizations asking for end-of-the-year contributions. I mentioned this on Twitter today and my friend Kathy H suggested I "do a a year-end blog post reviewing year-end appeals from Quaker organizations."

I don't think I'm up for writing reviews, but I can make a list! Here are quotes from the Friends organizations I've heard from in the last week. Click on the name of the organization to donate.

• School of the Spirit: Your donation will help "the new Core Teaching team . . . to meet together as they prepare for the next On Being a Spiritual Nurturer class."

• Quaker Voluntary Service: "Your support is vital in creating opportunities for Spirit-led witness, in the long tradition of Quaker service. We are raising funds to support the QVS programs in Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Portland."

• Friends Journal: "Your tax-deductible online gift will help Friends Journal continue to be a unifying and empowering force for Friends." 

• Friends World Committee for Consultation: "Answering God's call to universal love, the Friends World Committee brings Friends of varying traditions and cultural experiences together in worship, communications and consultation, to express our common heritage and our Quaker message to the world." 

• Friends General Conference: "From the Gathering to the Quaker Cloud, from the New Meetings Project to Quaker Quest, together we’ve done so much to build and strengthen the Religious Society of Friends."

• Pendle Hill: "Contributions allow us to provide experiences that inspire leadership, service, spiritual enrichment, and action for peace and justice."

• American Friends Service Committee: "Help build peace, push for immigrant rights, address prison issues, end discrimination, and advocate for just economies."

And, as always, I highly recommend giving money to Freedom Friends Church.  

Happy new year, Friends!

Sexuality and Quaker Identity

For my project for my Sexuality in the Bible class, I facilitated a panel at Atlanta Friends Meeting after meeting for worship on November 30, 2014. The format was to have three Friends on the panel share for 10-15 minutes each about how their sexuality (defined broadly to include sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, and anything else that seemed relevant) has impacted their faith life and their Quaker identity. After the panel, I invited the rest of the people in the room to join the conversation in worship sharing: speaking out of the silence from their own experience in response to the query, “How has your sexuality impacted your Quaker identity?”

I initially hoped to have the forum on the last Sunday in October, but there was another event scheduled for that time. It was a little challenging to find people for the panel on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, but I eventually found three people who were willing: “Anna,” a gender-nonconforming woman in her early 20s who identifies as queer, “Bruce,” a gay man in his late 50s, and “Mia,” a lesbian woman in her early 50s. I did not intend to have only queer-identified people on the panel (I had hoped to have at least one straight person!), but those were the people I found who were willing to participate. There were 22 people present for the panel, ranging in age from 20s to 70s, queer and straight, some married and some not. I invited the teens in the meeting, but none of them decided to come.

Anna spoke first. She grew up as a Quaker and spent several years questioning her sexual orientation and gender identity. She came out as queer in college, and her family and faith community were supportive. She is still questioning her gender identity, but is comfortable with female pronouns and with calling herself a gender-nonconforming woman. Anna said that she was glad to have grown up among Friends, who allowed her to be whoever she was. She was active in the gay/straight alliance in her high school and appreciated all of the support that Quakers offered to LGBT teens. She thinks it was helpful for her as she questioned her own identity, even though she had not yet come out. She feels that her identity as a Quaker is more central for her than her identity as queer or gender-nonconforming, and that has given her something to hold on to even as she questioned other parts of her identity. She also feels like her questions about identity have led her to what she wants to do with her life. She plans to apply to graduate school next year and would like to focus on the intersection of identity and environmental studies, particularly looking at individuals’ narratives.

Bruce spoke next. He talked about how grateful he is that he can now have easy conversations with family members about his partner, in part because his parents have passed away. His father was very conservative and left the Episcopal church over the ordination of women. Bruce was always very politically liberal, and he thinks the fights that he had with his father about politics were really a front for the conversation they did not have about Bruce’s sexual orientation. Bruce knew from a young age that he was attracted to men, but he prayed that God would take those feelings away. He laughed that God always answers prayer, but not always in the way that you want! Bruce said that, even ten years ago, he would have changed that part of himself, but now he sees it as an opportunity for ministry. He has experienced feeling like an outsider, which made him more compassionate, and he is able to share with others about his sexual orientation. Bruce told us how he sat on a nine-hour flight next to a Mormon man who had never met an openly gay man. A week later, the Mormon man sent him a copy of the Book of Mormon with a note saying that their conversation had given him a lot to think about. Bruce felt like it was an opportunity for both of them to learn.

Mia spoke last, and she began with an explanation of how she uses the word “God.” She struggles with saying “God” because it seems male and white to her, but she still uses it because everyone knows what it means. She is not sure whether she believes in God, but she does believe in that of God in everyone. That is the basis for her understanding of sexuality. It is a recognition of that of God in everyone, and sex is a meeting of that Spirit in two people. She feels like her identity as a lesbian and a woman are much less important than her identity as a Friend. Mia is involved with the high school program at the meeting and has taught First Day School in the past. She tries to bring this sense of identity to her teaching and help her students recognize that of God in everyone they meet.

When I opened up the discussion for worship sharing, several Friends spoke. One woman quoted Romans 12:2, “Do not conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your spirit.” She said that, as a straight woman, she had mostly conformed to the expectations of her culture, but having a friend who struggled with her lesbian identity to the point of being suicidal helped open her eyes to the diversity of sexual identities and the pain that the society cause to those who did not conform. Another woman talked about how she grew up during the sexual revolution, when it seemed like everything was permissible, but her experience was that a lot of people got hurt through sexual encounters, emotionally or physically (particularly during the AIDS epidemic). What she took away from that experience was that sex was a powerful thing that must be engaged in carefully.

A theme in the sharing was how to talk about sex and sexuality with the children in the community in an age-appropriate way. There was a desire to do so, but some questions about how. I shared that, having grown up in purity culture, I know that a lot of girls do not learn that sex should be pleasurable. I said that I hope the meeting can talk about how sex is a powerful thing, but also a source of pleasure, joy, and connection. One woman reflected how glad she was that two of the people on the panel had come out in environments that were supportive of their sexual orientations. She expressed the hope that the meeting could be a place for children to be who they are, LGBT or straight, and be supported as they question, evolve, and grow.

I was very pleased with how the panel and conversation went, and I got a lot of good feedback from the panel members and those who attended the panel. After we concluded, people stayed to talk with each other about the topics that arose. I think that there will be ongoing conversations in the meeting about sexual identity and Quaker identity, and it seems like there may be more thought and work on a sexual education curriculum for children based on these conversations.

Sex Without Love

Last winter, I had sex with a man a few times.  We weren't dating, really, though we went out to dinner occasionally.  For reasons that are unimportant here, we both knew that the relationship had no future.  

But there was heat.  I didn't want him to be my boyfriend, but he smelled great, I liked the way he tasted, and when he touched me, I melted.

We had conversations about what it all meant, and agreed that we weren't committed to each other or even exclusive.  But sometimes, when we were out in public, he would put his arm around me.  I would awkwardly shrug my way out of it.  

I knew he felt hurt, but I still didn't want to make what we were doing public.  I said that it was because I was new here, and thought that it was because I knew it wasn't going to last.

I've been thinking about this again recently, and realized why I didn't want him to be affectionate in public.  We were doing exactly the same thing, but it made him a stud and it made me a slut.  

Fuck purity culture.

Don't Tell Me to Smile

I got into an extended conversation yesterday on Facebook about street harassment. I mentioned that I have had some recent experiences with men (yes, grown men) yelling at me from cars. I added, "And don't even get me started on men telling me to smile."

A man who I know to be kind and thoughtful asked what was wrong with telling a woman to smile. The following is a slightly edited version of my response:

Thanks for the question! When I said don't get me started, it's because I have so much to say about this. I am happy to respond and point you toward some other sources.

Men telling women to smile is a problem for a lot of reasons. One is that if I am not smiling in a public place, I might have a good reason. Maybe my sister is in the hospital, or I just got fired, or I was just thinking about something.

But when a man I don't know tells me to smile, I have to stop thinking about whatever it was I was thinking about and engage him. I have to either smile for him, even if I don't want to, or I have to refuse. I have to decide how badly he might respond. Will he get mad? Is it possible he could attack me?

In the end, it is a form of body control. It reinforces the idea that I am not out in public for myself, but to be pretty for men. It may seem like a small thing, but when it happens often, it is pretty demoralizing.

In sum, strangers are not entitled to my body, my time, or my attention.

My friend, Monika T, added:

The thing is, telling someone to smile is telling them what to do and how to feel. And you would be astounded how many men regard women that way. Its insidious and pervasive. Every time I go into the city, I have to devote some of my mental energy and focus to assessing who might harass me, and how they might react if I push back. This happens often if not always on my way to class, when I have better things to be thinking about.

 There are some wonderful videos illustrating how ridiculous and awful telling women to smile is, such as this one called Smile, and this one from Stop Telling Women to Smile:



This morning, I saw that I was not the only one thinking or writing about this issue yesterday!  Here is a wonderful article about street harassment: You're a Good-Looking Girl . . . I Want to Attack You.  Cameron Esposito sums it up well:

I do not care if you think I am beautiful. Your feedback or evaluation isn’t needed. I also do not care if you think I am not beautiful. Your feedback or evaluation isn’t needed there either.

I am grateful for the men who engaged in this conversation.  If men are concerned about this issue and looking for ways to help, here are 35 Practical Steps Men Can Take to Support Feminism.

Pastoral Authority in Unprogrammed Friends

[As part of my second year in a Master of Divinity program at Candler School of Theology, I am required to spend eight hours a week in an ecclesial setting.  My site is Atlanta Friends Meeting, where I am a sojourning member.  This week, in the class connected with that site work, we were asked to interview our site mentor about his or her views on pastoral authority and leadership.  These are my reflections on our conversation.]

When I interviewed my site mentor, Paul B, about his understanding of pastoral authority and leadership, we agreed that it is a tricky question for unprogrammed Friends.  In my site, Atlanta Friends Meeting (AFM), there is no pastoral staff.  Paul stated that the pastoral nature of Quakerism is that the community cares for itself instead of having a designated pastor or minister to provide care.  Thus, every Friend has an obligation to support the community.

At AFM, we do have a committee that focuses on pastoral care, the Care and Counsel committee.  That committee is made up of people who choose to be on it and serve for a designated term.  The committee draws people who are gifted in pastoral care, but they are not the only people who provide pastoral care in the meeting.  One of the tensions in an unprogrammed meeting is how to hold (mostly) volunteers accountable.  Having people rotate off the committee after their term is one way to do that.

As we spoke, the primary metaphor that Paul used for pastoral care was the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27).  Christ is the head of our meeting and we are the body.  Within that body, people care for each other and provide care as needed.  Friends are resistant to the idea of authority, other than the authority that comes from the Holy Spirit, but we do recognize the need for leadership.

Three committees in AFM cover three of the roles that a pastor traditionally fills.  Care and Counsel provides pastoral care as described above.  The Ministry and Worship committee focuses on the worship within the meeting and attends to things like weddings, support for ministry, and applications for membership (I serve on the Ministry and Worship committee).  We also have a Social Concerns committee, which connects the meeting to the larger community context and does outreach.

Reflecting on this conversation, I agree that the body of Christ is a very good metaphor for pastoral care in a Friends meeting.  I also realized that my personal metaphor for ministry has been the story of Peter’s shadow falling on people and healing them (Acts 5:15).  In that story, if Peter’s shadow is behind him as he walks, he will never know whom he is healing.

I have been a public minister among Friends for over six years now, and in that time I have lived in four different cities.  Each time I moved, I felt like God was calling me to the next place, but it has been very hard for me.  I feel like I have been planting seeds in ministry, but I do not get to stay long enough to see how they grow or if they bear fruit.  I have to trust that God is working through me even as I move on.

Having a year to spend deeply involved in the life of the meeting at AFM feels like a gift.  My site mentors and I are still discerning what ministry will look like for me in this context, but I know that there are needs in the meeting and that I have gifts to bring.  I am also grateful that I will not be doing this work alone.  We have a well-developed committee structure with many people bringing their time, gifts, and skills to support this community of Friends.

Recording Resources

A few weeks ago, a Friend wrote me asking if I knew of any resources about the Quaker process for recording ministers.  He said he was new to this, and it had been hard to find resources online.  I compiled a list of resources for him, and thought it might be useful for others as well.

My home meeting, Freedom Friends Church, has a page of resources on recorded ministry.

Here is a YouTube video of me talking about my recording process with Friends Journal:

I also posted quite a bit about the process of being recorded on my blog under the Recording label, as well as sharing stories from other women who have been recorded as ministers.

Steven Davidson wrote about some of the objections to recording in an article called Recording Gifts of Ministry in New York Yearly Meeting's Spark.  (See also Resources on Ministry.)

I highly recommend Brian Drayton's book On Living with a Concern for Gospel Ministry.  The whole book is excellent, but he talks specifically about his experience of being a recorded minister and reporting back to his meeting in Appendix 1 and 2.

Are there other resources you would recommend, Friends?

The Middle

"How is it with you in your call?"

The question came from a woman I had just met at the Pacific Northwest Quaker Women's Theology Conference.  It took me by surprise, but after I thought for a moment, I said that there had been a lot of energy at the conference around beginning the journey, and that is not where I am.  I feel like I am on the path, but just plodding along.

The call to ministry is exciting and sexy.  Trying to live a life of ongoing faithfulness is not.

I have been a public Friend for six years now.  Not long compared to some, but long enough to get past the initial excitement of the call.  Sometimes ministry is exciting, sometimes it is horrible, and sometimes it is just a slog.

I have found that, once Friends are on board with the idea of ministry, there is a lot more focus on getting started than on the tools we need for a sustained life of ministry.  I hope that those of us who are doing this work can find ways to encourage each other in the middle and along the way.

Quaker Fame

"You might say they are going through fame puberty—the awkward stage." Nick Paumgarten

For the past year, I have been going to Quaker events and hiding.  I wrote about this a little after the FGC Gathering last year (where I actually started carrying around a disguise).  I said then that I was having a hard time with my rising level of "Quaker celebrity." It is something that is still a struggle for me.

Few things will throw me off center at a Quaker event faster than when someone knows who I am and I have no idea who they are.  A Friend will introduce me in conversation and the other person's face will light up.  I feel dread because I know they have read something I have written, or heard me speak, or heard about me some other way.  I never know what to do, and any response on my part feels awkward and ungracious.

I read the quote above in the New Yorker a few days ago and it spoke to my condition.  I feel like I have been going through an extended fame puberty.  Fortunately, I have been able to speak about this with some trusted elders over the past few months, and they have given me some good advice:

1.  I need to find ways to acknowledge that God is working through me when I do ministry.  It is especially awkward for me when people compliment me on a message I have given, because I feel strongly that those messages come from God.  At heart, my ministry is to help people experience the presence of God.  When they experience God through me, it can be a powerful and attractive experience.  It is important for me to be clear that I am the conduit, not the source.

2.  If I keep doing this work, this will keep happening.  I think part of the reason that I respond so poorly is because I act like every time I am recognized, it is the first time or totally unexpected.  I need to stop acting that way and start putting together a toolkit for how to respond when this happens.

3.  I need to find a Quaker space that is restorative for me.  A couple people have encouraged me to find somewhere that I can go not as a minister, but to worship and rest.  This may involve sending a message to the organizers in advance about my needs and how I want to participate.

All of this is complicated by the fact that Friends pretend like we don't have celebrities.  It is very hard to claim a level of fame when Quakers want to believe that we are all equal in every way.  But I think it is important to do so for me to be able to grow out of this "fame puberty," and I am going to claim this:

I am a minor celebrity in a small denomination.

How did it make you feel to read that?  Was it funny?  Did it seem like not a big deal?  Or did it make you want to reassure me that, really, I'm not that famous?

Epistle

Epistle of the 2014
Pacific Northwest Quaker Women’s Theology Conference
June 11-15, 2014
Menucha Retreat Center, Corbett, Oregon

Greeting to Friends Everywhere:

We are 77 women who have come together from North Pacific Yearly Meeting, Northwest Yearly Meeting, Freedom Friends Church, and meetings further afield. Our theme this year was “Wilt Thou Go on My Journey?” To prepare for the conference, each woman wrote a short reflection paper on the conference theme and quotes from Luke 9:2-4, Isaiah 6:9, and from two women who traveled in the Quaker ministry: Nancy Hawkins and Caroline Stephen. We read each other’s papers and discussed them within our home groups: small groups of women who met throughout the conference to share with each other their stories with confidentiality, great trust, and vulnerability.

We met to worship together in unprogrammed worship, plenary sessions, workshops, community activities, worship for business, and semi-programmed worship. Each day we explored a different aspect or topic related to spiritual journeys: Welcoming, Clearness of Calling, Doubt and Fear on the Journey, Deepening Faith, and Journeying Together.

Through workshops, including workshops on writing, songs, movement, and prayer, we explored ways to reflect on, express, and share our journeys with each other, moving past our fears about being judged based on our differences. We felt great trust in this group and were able to shed our reluctance to expose our fears and joys to each other. We celebrated what we found in common and explored what was new to us.

We used forms of worship that were new to most of us from both programmed and unprogrammed meetings, including chanting and worshipful movement. We found these forms to be powerful ways to move into worship together. Spirit-led, spontaneous acapella singing enriched our worship and community.

During a powerful gathered meeting, we supported those who were trembling, weeping, and quaking and encouraged them to speak. We talked with each other about our roots as Quakers and about how our traditions have splintered so that none of us has a complete experience. We heard from the Lord a call to help bring those pieces back together that can help us create a new mosaic that honors the many facets of our different traditions.

We committed to organize this conference again in two years’ time and to invite more women from the evangelical traditions.

We asked ourselves what we would bring with us from this conference. We were invited to take the things we had heard and experienced and allow them to change us and through us, change our communities and to bridge the divides between different yearly meetings.

Regards,
All of us gathered at the 2014 Pacific Northwest Quaker Women’s Theology Conference.

Workshop: On Prayer

[The workshop I am leading on prayer at the Pacific Northwest Quaker Women's Theology Conference.]

Douglas Steere said that “To pray is to pay attention to the deepest thing that we know.”  In this workshop, we will explore different kinds of prayer, including body prayer, a breathing prayer, and an interactive stations of the Lord’s Prayer.  Everyone is welcome.

Led by Ashley W – Originally from Alaska, studying at Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, and a recorded minister of Freedom Friends Church in Salem, OR.  I call a lot of places home.

Quakers and Women in Ministry (Video)

In February, I had the opportunity to go to Philadelphia to observe the Friends Journal board meeting for a school project.  While I was there, Jon Watts interviewed me for Friends Journal's new QuakerSpeak project.  We talked about a lot of things, including my recording process, vocal ministry, my home meeting, Freedom Friends Church, and women in ministry.

I feel honored to be featured in this week's QuakerSpeak video about Quakers and women in ministry, along with Marcelle Martin, Carole Spencer, and others.  This video does a great job of explaining Friends' history of women in ministry, as well as talking about some of the ongoing challenges for women in ministry.


I am very excited about the QuakerSpeak project, and I look forward to the ways that QuakerSpeak will share information about Friends today in its weekly videos.  Good work, Friends!

Seeking the Living Water

[The message I gave out of open worship at the Friends World Committee for Consultation Section of the Americas consultation in High Point, NC.] 


At Freedom Friends Church, we always begin with gratitude.  I am grateful to be here with all of you this evening.  I am grateful for safe travels and warm welcomes.  I am grateful for Deborah S, who is eldering for me, and for all of the Friends who are holding me in prayer.  I am grateful for all of you, for the joy and hope and love you bring to this gathering.  I am grateful that God is not finished with us yet.

In Jeremiah 2:13, the prophet Jeremiah speaks the word of the Lord, saying, “My people have committed two sins:  They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns, cisterns that cannot hold water.”

As I was preparing this message, two images from the natural world came to me.  The first is of dead trees filled with salt in Alaska.

I was born and raised in Alaska, and so was my mother, and so were her parents.  That place is deep in my bones.  There are certain colors and smells and images that I associate with it, and when I see them or smell them, I know that I am home.

One of the most haunting images of my childhood was of these dead trees.  They are a result of the 1964 earthquake.  That earthquake was 9.2 and lasted for four minutes.  My grandparents and my mother thought that it was the end of the world.  They ran outside as their house fell off its foundation.  The destruction was incredible.

In one part of Alaska, the ground sank below sea level, and the trees’ root systems filled with salt water.  Decades later, you could drive by and see these ghost trees, standing exactly as they stood during the earthquake.  It is a haunting image and one that seemed like it would last forever.

This was a natural reaction to a natural disaster.  The water that killed those trees had been living water, but it was no longer life-giving for those trees. 

Sometimes when we encounter God, it feels a little like that: overwhelming.

There is a story in the Bible where Jesus takes three of his disciples up onto a mountain to pray, and while they are there, they have an encounter with the living God.  As Jesus was praying, his face was transformed and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightening.  (Luke 9:29)

This story is like another story in the Bible, where Moses also went up a mountain to encounter God.  After he did, his face also glowed.  His face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord.  (Exodus 34:29)

But the first time Moses went down from the mountain, he found that the people had built a golden calf and were worshiping it.  (Exodus 32:5-6)

The question that people always ask is, How could the Israelites do that?  They had just had an incredible encounter with the living God; God had just rescued them from slavery in Egypt and performed miracle after miracle.  But I think it is not in spite of that encounter with God that the Israelites built the golden calf, but because of it.

A phrase you often hear Quaker ministers say to each other is, “Watch what you fill up on.”  When we encounter the living God, that experience changes us, inside and out, and others can see it.  We feel different and we look and sound different. 

Afterward, there is a strong impulse to recreate the experience, to fill the hole that was so recently filled by the presence of God.

And, in the story of Jesus on the mountain, this is what Peter wanted to do.  He saw Jesus’ radiant face and the two men with him and said, “Master, it is good for us to be here.  Let us put up three shelters―one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”  The Bible says that he did not know what he was saying.  (Luke 9:33) 

But Peter knew that he had encountered the living God.  He wanted to mark the experience and hold on to it by making a tabernacle, but the spirit of God had moved on.

I began with Jeremiah 2:13, a passage that has been important to me.  But when I was in North Carolina a couple years ago, a Friend from Ohio Yearly Meeting reminded me of another passage about water.  Proverbs 5:15 instructs us to “drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well.”

The context of this verse is faithfulness to one’s spouse, but I think it works for the Religious Society as Friends as well.  We are all here because we have found something, we have encountered the living God, we have found the living water here among Friends.  Where have we found it?  Where have we abandoned it?  Where do we find it now?

Even if we have abandoned the living water or we have set up monuments to the past, there is always hope.  Even those ghost trees that haunted my childhood won’t last forever.  When I was a teenager, an artist began to make salt and pepper shakers out of the trees. 

The second image from the natural world that came to me is of a place that I used to pass by in Salem, Oregon when I would take walks on my lunch break.  It was a place that had been a concrete driveway, but the concrete had been taken away and there was grass growing where it had been.  After a while, you couldn’t even see where the concrete had been, it was just grass.

Concrete seems permanent.  It is heavy and it seems like it will last forever, but it doesn’t.  It is possible for grass to grow where there was once concrete.

Transformation is always possible.

Thoughts on Leadings III

[My reflection paper for the Pacific Northwest Quaker Women's Theology Conference.  The theme and quotes for reflection are available online here.]

As I write this from Atlanta, the Pacific Northwest feels very far away.  At the same time, the theme of “Wilt Thou Go On My Journey” speaks to me, and especially the quote from Luke, where Jesus tells the disciples to go out and take nothing on the journey.  Last year, I sold and gave away almost everything I owned because I felt God leading me to go to seminary.  At the end of my first year, I am still not sure why or what I will be doing when I am finished with this degree.  But I felt clear that this was the path for me and I am continuing on it.

The quote from Isaiah (“Here I am.  Send me!”) made me smile.  Out of context, it seems so hopeful and encouraging.  But the chapter goes on to say that Isaiah will speak but the people will not understand.  When Isaiah asks how long, God responds, “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is utterly desolate.”  (Isaiah 6:11)

This is a hard message.  God is asking Isaiah to go out and speak to a people whose eyes are shut and ears are closed, until everything is destroyed.  But at the end, a stump remains, and “The holy seed is its stump.”  (Isaiah 6:14)  This passage and the other quotes remind me that in ministry, our goal is faithfulness, not success.  God may be calling us to do or say hard things, things that others may not understand.  And yet, even when it seems like everything is falling apart, God is still there.

At the beginning of a leading, everything feels easy and rightly ordered.  I am afraid, of course, because I am taking on something new, but I also have a deep sense of joy.  As I go on and follow that leading, things become harder.  I find myself feeling worn down, or in conflict with people I care about, or simply questioning whether I heard correctly.  I start to calculate the costs of setting out on the journey and think that it would have been easier just to stay home.

I have also found that following leadings tend to bring up my deep stuff―the things I need to work through.  In fact, this is one of the signals for me that I am on the right track.  When I find myself struggling with old issues, I know there is something for me to learn from the situation and that my perspective is valuable in some way that I can’t quite see.

Fortunately, I don’t have to go it alone.  I have a massive “spiritual pit crew” for this journey including my spiritual director, an anchoring committee, elders, peers in ministry, and many friends who are willing to provide a listening ear or a timely prayer.  It is also a blessing for me to be able to accompany others in this way, whether it is through an ongoing spiritual friendship or a spontaneous phone call from a different time zone.

When I get to the end of a leading, it never looks quite the way I expected.  The fantastic visions I had when I first felt led have been replaced with a more solid reality, but one that feels earned and better than what I imagined because it is real.  I am grateful for the things that I have learned along the way, even the hard things, and for the relationships that have deepened.  I can see how God was with me through it all.  Most of all, I am tired and ready for a rest―happy to lay down this particular thing for a while and take a break before the next journey.

A Date

[This semester, I am taking a class called Vocational Discernment for a Sustained Life of Ministry.  Our first assignment was to write a creative conversation in which we discuss our call to ministry with another person.  This is my paper.]

I have been going on a lot of dates lately and inevitably at some point during the date, the conversation turns to how I am in seminary and that I am a Quaker.  Here is an only slightly exaggerated version of how those conversations go.

DATE:  So, you’re in seminary.  Does that mean you want to be a minister?

ME:  Actually, I already am a minister.  I was recorded as a minister by my Quaker meeting last June.

DATE:  Recorded?  What does that mean?

ME:  Quakers do not have ordination―we believe that only God can ordain ministers.  Instead, Friends observe and record the gifts of ministry.  My meeting observed my gifts of minister over several years, then I went through a recording process, and the meeting recorded me as a minister in a special business meeting.

DATE:  I don’t really know much about Quakers.  How are they different from other denominations?

ME:  Quakers believe that everyone has direct access to God.  Instead of looking outside ourselves for guidance, we turn to the inward Christ, or the light of God that we believe is inside of each of us to guide us.

DATE:  If we all have God inside of us, why do Quakers need to get together in groups?  Can’t you just turn inward?

ME:  A couple reasons.  One is that we are not always good at discerning what is coming from God and what is coming from us.  Our Quaker meetings help us to tell the difference.  Also, we believe that God can speak to us through anyone, so during our meetings, we wait in silence to see if anyone will feel led by God to speak.

DATE:  Wait, do you hear God talking to you?

ME:  Yes, I believe I do.  I hear God in the things that other people say to me, and in the things they do without speaking.  I also hear God in messages in meeting, and in nudges that I feel throughout the day to do or not do something, or to hold someone in prayer.

DATE:  But have you ever heard God speak to you directly, with words?

ME:  Yes.  That doesn’t happen very often, but I have experienced it.

DATE:  Can you tell me about a time when it happened?

ME:  A good example is the story that I consider my call to ministry.

It was in 2008, at the Pacific Northwest Quaker Women’s Theology Conference.  I enjoyed the conference very much, but by the end of it, I felt exhausted and very ready to go home.  I had agreed to be co-clerk of the planning committee for the next conference, and I was feeling overwhelmed because I had never done anything like that before.

I was sitting in our final worship for the conference when I heard God say to me, “It’s not always going to be this easy.”

I said, “What?”  Of all the words I could think of to describe my experience at the conference, “easy” was not one of them.

God responded, “Yes, this is the easy part.  It is going to be a lot harder after this.  But I will be there too.”

DATE:  Wow.  That sounds intense.

ME:  It was.

DATE:  Has it been hard?

ME:  Yes, sometimes ministry has been very hard.  I tend to resist God―mostly out of fear―making it harder for myself.  But I have always had the sense that God is with me.

DATE:  I get the sense that for you, ministry means something different from being a pastor of a church.  Is that right?

ME:  Being a pastor is one form of ministry, but I do not feel called to pastoral ministry right now.  My ministry has taken lots of forms: I have done traveling ministry among different branches of Friends, I lead workshops and preach, and I do quite a bit of writing.  I try to stay open to what I feel God is calling me to do.

DATE:  But what about seminary?  Why go to seminary if you are already a minister?

ME:  One reason is that I carry a concern for supporting leaders in the Religious Society of Friends.  We don’t always do a good job of supporting leaders, and I wanted to go to a school that was clear in its support of leadership and bring what I learned there back to my denomination.  

I was also hoping that seminary would help me learn how to have a sustained life of ministry.  Burnout is far too common, and I would like to be able to do this for as long as I feel God is calling me.

DATE:  I know that you are also a lawyer.  Are you planning to continue practicing law?

ME:  I am doing some legal work while I am in seminary to help pay the bills, but I am hoping to transition to full-time ministry over the next few years.

DATE:  And you’re from Alaska?  Are you planning on going back there after you finish seminary?  Or back to Oregon?

ME:  Probably not.  I love the Pacific Northwest, but I will probably go wherever I find a job.

DATE:  It sounds like you are going through a lot of changes in your life right now!

ME:  Indeed.  How about you?  Let’s talk about you for a while!

Recorded Minister Report for 2013

“For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”  Matthew 18:20.

Shortly after Freedom Friends Church recorded my gifts of ministry in June 2013, I had a couple opportunities for public ministry.  On June 30 to July 6, I led a five-day workshop on Convergent Friends at the FGC Gathering, and I had the opportunity to preach at Camas Friends Church on July 28.  I also found I had many opportunities, both formal and informal, to use my gifts.  I clerked a conference call clearness committee for a Friend who was discerning how to leave her job, and I was approached by several (mostly young) Friends, online and in person, to talk about topics that have been important for me over the past several years, such as the gift of prophecy, being a woman in ministry, and how it feels to be led to give vocal ministry.  My primary focus during that time, however, was the transition from my life in Salem to beginning seminary in Atlanta.  It was a full, emotional, and surprisingly productive summer!

On August 19, the cats and I flew across the country to our new home in Atlanta.  Orientation at Candler School of Theology began two days later.  The transition was harder than I expected, and my experience at Candler so far has been decidedly mixed.  There are things that I love about studying at Candler: my classes are interesting, the professors are brilliant and entertaining, and my classmates are thoughtful and kind.  I am especially excited about getting to take practical classes such as Nonprofit Leadership and Management and Vocational Discernment for a Sustained Life of Ministry.  As part of my contextual education, I spend Mondays as a chaplain intern at a women’s prison located about an hour north of Atlanta; that is one of the highlights of my week.  I also enjoy singing in a choir for credit.

But in the first few weeks of my time at Candler, the administration decided to give an alumni award to Eddie Fox, a man who has been extremely vocal in the fight to prevent full equality for LGBT people in the United Methodist Church.  I ended up in tears in a meeting with the dean and other students and faculty, saying how hurt I felt by the decision to give this award and questioning whether, as an out bisexual, I was really welcome at Candler.  In response to this controversy, an alum wrote that she feels Candler is “welcoming but not affirming,” and I have to agree.  It was especially disappointing for me because that is not the way Candler presents itself in its promotional materials.  One positive outcome is that I quickly connected with the LGBT group at Candler (Sacred Worth), and I have felt very supported by the Emory Office of LGBT Life and other allies on campus.

Another source of support has been friends at Atlanta Friends Meeting.  It was easy to decide which Quaker meeting to attend in Atlanta because there is only one!  Atlanta Friends reminds me a lot of University Friends Meeting in Seattle, both in size and culture, and Friends there have been very welcoming.  I became a sojourning member in October and I anticipate joining a meeting committee soon.  I have also asked the meeting for a support committee.

In November, I had the opportunity to attend a School of the Spirit spiritual renewal weekend in Durham, NC.  I also got to spend the night before the retreat with Friends at Wings of Dawn Farm.  It was wonderful to see so many friends from my School of the Spirit class and others.  I found while I was there that the planned theme of the renewal weekend (on loss and failure) was not speaking to me, so I spent most of the weekend on a true retreat, taking time for quiet rest and reflection.  It was good for my soul and reminded me of my need to incorporate more times of retreat into my daily life.

I have continued to do some writing, though writing on my blog ebbs and flows as usual.  I published a piece on working with an elder in the Western Friend book An Inner Strength: Quakers and Leadership, which came out in July.  I have an upcoming article in Friends Journal on the importance of financial support for ministry.  I have also been doing a fair amount of writing for my seminary classes and expect to do more this semester.

I feel that my self-care during this time of transition has been good.  My course load last semester felt manageable and I did not do very much paid legal work.  I have been intentional about my spiritual practices: setting aside time in the morning for prayer, reading a chapter of the Bible each night, taking Saturday as a sabbath from schoolwork, and getting regular exercise.  I have begun meeting monthly with a spiritual director, and Aimee M and I have kept up a spiritual friendship, checking in with each other over the phone every few months.

Looking ahead, the biggest thing on the horizon is that I will be giving a plenary message at the FWCC Consultation in High Point, NC on April 11.  I am preparing the message in advance so it can be translated into Spanish for simultaneous interpretation.  I hope to spend next summer working in Salem, and I have offered to lead a workshop on prayer at the Pacific Northwest Quaker Women’s Theology Conference.  My New Year’s resolution this year is discernment for a sustained life of ministry, and I have already found several opportunities to practice discernment!

I am grateful to all of you at Freedom Friends Church for your love, prayers, and support, as well as for the gift of my recording this year.  I am holding you in prayer as you meet for yearly meeting, and I look forward to seeing you next summer.

Love,
Ashley